Monday, 19 November 2012

Clint Langley - Ro Busters

The Droids are back in town!

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Prog 1810 brings us full circle as Pat Mills and Clint Langley share with us the very origins of Ro-Busters! Clint has produced this beautiful, nostalgia-laden cover, featuring Hammerstein with his 'old' head, to celebrate!

2000AD fans have been raving about Clint's inked artwork in the prog (which is gorgeous) but I always welcome his computer generated work too, so this cover is a blast for me! Thanks to Clint for sending it!

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I wanted to use this blog post to highlight the sterling work Clint puts into those beautiful, glossy hardback ABC Warriors books produced by Rebellion. Over the years, the strip has been blessed with a phenomenal roster of artists - O'Neill, McMahon, Gibbons, Bisley, Walker, Flint, Ezquerra and of course Langley to name a few. While I love the bickering and boys' own action of the strip, a major appeal for me has always been the art.

With Langley's hardback books, this is really brought to the fore. He goes back to his work, enhancing it, changing the flow or ambiance of sequences and adding a great deal. I'd say the books are comparable structurally to the cinematic layouts of American Reaper; they're the director's cut - lavish volumes break free from the shackles of the prog and as a result are chock full of extended sequences, completely redesigned panel layouts, pin ups and more. If you've only read the warriors in the prog, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Here's a couple of comparisons below.

Example 1 - Joe Pineapples - The Hit and Escape.

Here's the flashback of Joe getting ready to take out Volkhan, as seen in your prog. A nice DPS, I'm sure you'll agree...

Prog: Joe gets ready to off the Ikon...

Unfortunately, the assassin's bullet grazes the Ikon's head. As the troops assemble, Joe makes his escape. Quite abruptly, Special Ops droid Zippo appears, shooting off a powerful bomb-tag attached to Joe before helping him escape. This is how it looked in your super soaraway prog...

However, this time, we get yet another awesome DPS, Joe in someone's sights...﻿

In the sights...

Yay, it's Zippo! Locked and loaded, he fires...

Ba-Doom!

His shot shears off the bomb on Joe's hand and the battle continues as in the prog (note, without those pesky credits!)

It's great how much those couple of splashes add to the development of Zippo's character, it's very cool of Clint to go back and do this.

Example 2: Mongrol's Story

Mongrol's creation at the hands of Lara and her subsequent death holds a special place in the hearts of most 2000AD readers I'm sure. Compare the final page of the episode from prog 1522 to the graphic novel. Mongrol buries his love before the final panel returns to the present as the warriors continue their journey across Mars...

Lara's iconic burrial as seen in Prog 1522

However, the book gives the scene much more time to breathe and includes that iconic image of Mongrol holding his beloved Laaaraaa! Her gravestone is fittingly at the end of the page...

A re-working of the page as shown in Rebellion's books...

Turning that page we get a beautiful, reworked DPS of the final panel, with much more detail and radically different lighting - check out the sunset, Deadlock's face and Hammerstein's eyes, for instance...

And Clint's re-worked panel becomes an incredible double page spread

As you can see, it's well worth getting the books if you can, as reading them is a really different experience to the prog, well worth the money too! The ABCs at their digital best!